No NCAA hearing for West Virginia, Rich Rodriguez

10:36 PM, November 18, 2010

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez / JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP

FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

West Virginia faces many of the same NCAA allegations of major violations that Michigan did earlier this month, including allegations against U-M football coach Rich Rodriguez for his time in Morgantown.

But the Mountaineers’ path through the NCAA’s infractions process now will be different than U-M’s. And Rodriguez almost certainly will not need to appear at another infractions hearing, as he did with U-M in August.

Still, West Virginia’s fate with the NCAA isn’t expected to be resolved until spring.

On Aug. 4, the NCAA sent West Virginia a notice of allegations, contending the football program committed five major violations and a secondary violation during 2005-07 (when Rodriguez was the coach) and 2008-10 (when his associate head coach and eventual successor, Bill Stewart, was in charge). West Virginia’s response to the NCAA was due today.

However, WVU announced Thursday that it would not submit a formal written response and thus would not appear before the Committee on Infractions as scheduled in February.

West Virginia and the NCAA agreed to a process called summary disposition. For that to happen, the school, involved individuals (possibly including Rodriguez) and NCAA investigators must agree on the facts and the school’s suggested penalities. The infractions committee will review a report in private and decide whether to accept the findings and penalties or hold an expedited hearing.

This process was not available for U-M because it was viewed as a repeat violator because of the Ed Martin basketball scandal.

West Virginia described its decision on its Web site this way: “The enforcement staff, the university and other involved parties have agreed that this case will instead advance through the summary disposition process, which eliminates the need for a written response and a formal hearing. This alternative process is a cooperative effort where the involved parties will jointly submit the case to the Committee on Infractions. The enforcement staff and all involved parties will be submitting an agreed upon summary disposition report at a future date.”

The school also said, “Completion of this process is anticipated in the spring of 2011.”

The U-M and WVU cases are remarkably similar, except for U-M’s violation that graduate assistant Alex Herron lied to investigators.

In the U-M case, the Wolverines acknowledged committing four major violations but disputed a fifth violation that Rodriguez “failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance within the football program.” The NCAA, in a ruling released Nov. 4, found Rodriguez guilty of a fifth violation but reduced it to a more narrow charge of failing to monitor his program.

The same initial charge has been levied by the NCAA against Rodriguez and Stewart.

When NCAA released its final report in the U-M case, chairman Paul Dee said his committee did not consider the West Virginia allegations. However, the committee, no longer led by Dee, is allowed to use precedent in deciding cases. Now that U-M’s case is completed, it could qualify as precedent for WVU’s case.

In August, Rodriguez released a statement about the WVU allegations that said, in part: “I regret any mistakes that were made or rules that were misinterpreted. Any errors certainly weren’t made intentionally.”

Contact MARK SNYDER: msnyder@freepress.com. Read more in his Wolverines blog at freep.com/wolverinesblog and follow him on Twitter @freepwolverines.